Babymetal – Babymetal

Just when you think you’ve seen it all, something even more outlandish or bizarre drops by. The rock and metal genre always had its fair share of theatrical bands, but it simply doesn’t get much weirder than three very young Japanese girls dressed up as gothic school girls bringing you some of the catchiest slabs of metal you’ll probably hear this year. Without further ado, here’s a dissection of Babymetal’s self-titled debut album.

Babymetal’s debut album offers a rather awkward blend of modern (death) metal, catchy J-pop hooks and choruses and even some dubstep influenced flourishes. In all fairness, this rather unorthodox cocktail of styles works very well on tracks like ‘Metigsune’, ‘Gimme Choko!!’ and ‘Catch Me If You Can’. These are some of the catchiest tunes you’ll probably hear this year. The songwriting is incredibly refined and lead vocalist Su-Metal really knows her stuff, despite her often ridiculously overproduced vocals.

As the record progresses it becomes more and more of a hit-or-miss affair. A song like ‘Li Ne!’ sounds more like a very cheap Vengaboys rip off and ‘Ijime, Dame, Zettai’ is so overly melodramatic and cheesy it would even make Joey DeMaio of Manowar cringe. ‘Headbanger!!!’ is pretty much the biggest parody on possibly every conceivable metal cliche out there.

Babymetal’s debut album is without a doubt the biggest musical headfuck of this year. It contains some of the best songs you’ll hear this year and probably a couple of the most cheesiest tunes as well. File this one under ‘guilty pleasures’, although one could raise some legitimate ethical questions about putting two fourteen and one sixteen year old girls in anime-type school uniforms and exploit them like this.